But first let´s address the elephant in the room – Windows 8. Having grown to accept Windows XP/7 the new “metro” tile style Windows 8 is somewhat of a culture shock for many. Sure, a lot of people have been put off upgrading their machines because of it – but should you be?

One of the biggest complaints has been the loss of the much loved Start button – but there are solutions, there are a number of free downloads available which can emulate this functionality without affecting your warranty (see the download section below for a choice of links). Sure you´ll still need to adapt a little, but it´s not all doom and gloom.

The Lenovo has a 15.6 inch widescreen LED display with a maximum resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels which produces sharp images and bold colours and re-produces your HD content crisply. And if you want to watch your HD content on your TV it even has an HDMI port to connect to an HD TV for full screen viewing.

There´s no skimping on connectivity with 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB 2.0 ports, RJ45 LAN port, VGA monitor connector, HDMI out for modern monitors/TVs and a Multi Card Slot that accepts SD, MMC cards. So there should be no problem connecting your favourite USB mouse or getting the photographs from your SD camera card.

Battery life is pretty good too, just under five hours during average web / gaming use. You can also adjust your battery usage to your needs with the Lenovo power saving settings utility – so it´s possible to stretch this even further.

The Lenovo is not a noisy machine either, most of the time it is pretty quiet, with the fan only coming on intermittently. It´s even possible to adjust this so it rarely comes on to save even more battery power, but at 5 hours average this shouldn´t really be necessary.

The keyboard and trackpad also perform well – the trackpad is big and responds accurately and also offers multi-touch support for easy browsing. The keyboard buttons are soft touch and virtually silent with a spacious layout. And weighing in at just 2.6kg it won´t feel like you´ve got a breeze block balanced on your lap either.

Verdict – Should you buy the Lenovo G500?

The Lenovo G500 15.6-inch Windows 8 Laptop PC covers all the bases, whether you want a multimedia pc to play your HD movies, surf the web or chat with friends on Skype the Lenovo provides the power and flexibility to cope with ease. And as with all of Lenovos´ products it´s solidly built so should be good for years to come!

Lenovo G500 Video – What does it look like?

Pretty good considering the cost point – there´s a lot of bang for your buck with this one.

Windows 8 Start Button Utility Download Links

If you miss the XP/Win 7 Start button functionality there are a number of free utilities available for download that can help to eleviate those pangs of despair. Here are a few of them – as I said they´re free and won´t invalidate your warranty. Enjoy! PS. My favourite is the Start Menu Reviver but don´t let that sway you…